The man in the moon

11 Jul 2007 — Adrian Morgan

Countless people have looked at the moon and seen, in the light and dark regions of its surface, some sort of human face (or else a full human figure). The Man in the Moon is observed all over the world, in both the northern and southern hemispheres, but the faces people see are not the same. One person sees an eye where another sees a mouth, and the face will never have an official map.

No-one, as far as I know, has ever formally researched how many versions of the Man in the Moon are seen around the world. Most illustrations show a version recognised in the Northern Hemisphere, but in Australia we see a face at least as readily, even though we look at the moon from a different orientation. In this blog post I’ll describe the face as I’ve seen it since I was six years old, adding my part to the very little that has been written from a southern hemisphere perspective.

Just to show I’m not the only one, here is a blog post written by another Australian, which agrees broadly with my interpretation of the face. There are differences in detail, but that’s to be expected. A survey would make a great sociological research project.

As a child, I pointed out to Mum that actually it looks like a snail. She was instantly converted, and royalty was replaced with a gastropod. The king’s crown corresponds with the snail’s stalks, and the big pile of cash corresponds approximately with its shell.

[Note: I re-wrote large parts of this blog post in February 2014 in a more formal style.]